Crafting overhaul

[Enigmatic]

The best way to increase the player base of a game, is to make it appeal to more people.  At the moment, the game is incredibly focused on PVP.  Which is great, but PVP is an elitist sport...  The strongest and best dominate, and everyone else has to fight an uphill battle to compete.

This top heavy game model tends to exclude casual gamers, and chokes off a good portion of the new player base.  Sure, new players can dick around for a bit, learn the ropes and have some fun... But pretty quickly they run into a wall...  All the worthwhile items are capitalized by PVP.  So, I'd like to make a suggestion:

Make Crafting a worthwhile and relevant MAIN play style.

Change the dynamic of the game, by making crafting more time consuming, but with more powerful results.

Alot of the changes in the coming wipe focus around increasing player interaction, and reducing larger factions ability to absolutely dominate the entire game.  Though we don't know exactly what the wipe will bring, I believe the best way to make the game more attractive to new (and old) players, increase player interaction, and reduce large, PVP focused factions power, is this:

1.  Make crafting harder

Leave the lowest level equipment how it is, few materials, minimal cash, and easy to mass produce.  But make it exponentially more difficult to make tougher equipment. 

For example, a 9mm Mauser requires 1w 2m 3j.  Leave that how it is.  A 10mm Pistol is 1w 5m 1a, instead increase it to 2w 6m 2a.  It's a much better gun, so it should take alot longer to gather the materials for.  Getting up in the range of the 14mm Pistol, at the moment 1w 3m 3a 2hqa and an advanced work bench.  Though the crafting location, and the hq alloys, are slightly harder to get, you can still craft hundreds of them in almost the same amount of time (in fact, due to the slow method of collecting junk, 100 Mausers would take much longer than 100 14mm Pistols).  Instead, make it something like 5w 20m 20a 10hqa.

Make it so that the better items take much longer to make than the easier ones.

2. Only low teir blueprints for NPC sale, mid-upper range blueprints from quests, highest tier blueprints from very tough multiplayer quests/dungeons

Having most blueprints available for sale at such cheap prices makes it way too easy to get.  Sure, Metal Armor Mk2 isn't too bad, it's a useful item, but there are much better armors out there.  Combat armor on the other hand, should be much harder to get.

Lockers are not the only answer to this.  Yes, lockers should still drop them very rarely, but there should be a surefire way to get them aswell... With work and risk.  For example, paying for a one time shot at clearing out a bunker for the blueprints.  Make it so that players actually have to think and work for the rarer blueprints.

3. Make crafting bonuses rarer

With rarer blueprints, and harder crafting, after the blueprint is used, and resources mass collected, it will still mean a flood of strong weapons into the game.  Instead, drop the chances of getting a bonus, and make it so that it is actually rare to get an exceptional weapon.  This will boost the value of out of the ordinary weapons by quite a bit, and make them that much more exciting to make and use.  I'd suggest 1/4 of the current chance, for all bonuses.

4. Reduce EXP gain from crafting

At the moment, you can level a character in minutes via crafting.  Leveling should be a somewhat time consuming challenge regardless of how you do it.  I'd suggest putting exp gains from crafting on a similar scale as the difficulty suggested.  Lower the exp gains from the most basic equipment, and raise the exp gains on the toughest, depending on the amount of materials required.

5. Let some of the most powerful equipment be crafted

Now, I can see many PVPers having an issue with this, but hear me out.  If you are into PVP, you are going to want to have the best equipment to win.  If you can get that equipment VIA PVP, why would you want to deal with crafters, or do anything else?  PVP dominance should have large rewards, but not to the point where PVP can become almost self sustainable.

If you force PVPers to trade for the best equipment, it'll open up alot more trade and interaction between players.

But this equipment should not come easily... At all.  It should be incredibly difficult to construct, with high risks.  For example, power armor could be built in parts, all requiring thousands of materials, maxed skills, and some rare collect-able items.

This would make it so that hardcore PVPers would be almost forced to buy the equipment from dedicated crafters rather than making it themselves.

6. Traits specifically for crafters

2 or 3 new traits specifically for crafters would definitely help boost the usefulness and uniqueness of dedicated crafters.  If crafting is their main game, they'll want traits to improve the speed and usefulness of crafting.  At the same time, crafters should not be competitive in combat.  So here are a few traits that could make that tradeoff:

Prodigy: Doubles chance of crafting bonuses, increases AP to fire weapons by one for 1h weapons, 2 for 2h
Reclusive Genius: Chance of using half resources to create items, PP reduced by 100
Mutant Strength: Carry weight doubled, HtH dmg increased by 5, can't use weapons
Gatherer:  Reduce AP cost of gathering/mining by 1, reduce DT by 5

7. New Support Skills

There are a few great support skills for crafters available right now, but as a dedicated class, it'd need more.

Lucky Strike: Chance of receiving HQ resources when gathering (science 100<, Luck 5<, level 6)
Hoarder: Carry weight increased by 50 (repair 100, endurance 6<, level 9)
Scrapper: Double the amount of junk found in random encounters (repair 100, perception 6<, level 3)
Iron Fist: Can cut wood and mine without tools (melee 100<, strength 8<, level 12)
In a Pinch: Can use repair tool as a melee weapon (20-30 dmg, AP 4) (melee 100, repair 150, level 12)

8. Crafting Perks

Now, as perks, these will need to be fairly powerful to make them worth taking.

Geologist: Doubles resources gathered when mining (science 150<, Strength 6<, level 10)
Lumberjack: Doubles resources gathered when chopping (repair 150<, Endurance 6<, level 10)
Lover, not a fighter:  6 bonus movement APs, +AP to shoot (science 75, repair 75, level 6)
Maintenance Man: 1/4 max quality loss when repairing (repair 150, level 15)
Sweatshop: Increase slave slots by 2, slaves can use work bench to make metal parts, alloys and gunpowder (Ch 4, Int 8, science 175, level 18)

(My laptop battery is about to die, so I'll cut it off there for now.  But I'd like to hear everyone else's suggestions).

I love crafting, I just feel it needs to be more relevant as a way to play the game, rather than just an easy way to level to try new PVP builds.

[dreg102]

Scum Brand Guns lose their value if the maker can't back them up with an in person demonstration of how effective they are.

Sent from my ZTE-Z990G using Tapatalk 2

[WGC1993]

Scum Brand weapons?! They say they almost never fail.

[Enigmatic]

Scum Brand Guns lose their value if the maker can't back them up with an in person demonstration of how effective they are.

Sent from my ZTE-Z990G using Tapatalk 2

Is this a reference I'm missing?  I'm confused

[Celard]

1. Sugested many times

2. I agree. Remove blueprints from shops even at begining of the sesion. Blueprints should be only in ruin lockers and dungeons.

But first you need to know that after wipe Combat Armor crafting will probalby greatly change (there are rumors that this will reuire new (old) materials: kevlar and maybe HQ fibers to craft it. Not confirmed)

3. Its not needed. After wipe you cant craft weapons with -1AP bonus (that the second thing you need to know about wipe) and combat armors will be harder to craft as i said

4. Sugested many times. We have level cap so this will be rather step backward. XP gain off some items (those used for hardcore exping now) will be probably decreased

5. Its allready announced:

Crafting & Gathering
- New item bonuses,
- Changed some bonus of crafted items,
- Some recipes changed to make top stuff more expensive to craft and requiring new resources,
- Gathering resources will be removed from private locations (except Private Mines) and moved to towns and other public locations with increased accessibility,
- Limited capability of slave mining, but manual gathering more effective than it is now,
- Rare items possibly craftable from rare materials and blueprints.

I like idea for these perks:

Iron Fist: Can cut wood and mine without tools (melee 100<, strength 8<, level 12)
In a Pinch: Can use repair tool as a melee weapon (20-30 dmg, AP 4) (melee 100, repair 150, level 12)

Iron Fist perk have potential. It can be final perk (24lv) for hth characters which gives bonuses damage, critical chance or something to happy hth players and option of cuting wood and mine ore without tools might be small addition to this

"In a pinch" is almost reasonoble but damage may be too high

Lover, not a fighter:  6 bonus movement APs, +AP to shoot (science 75, repair 75, level 6)

hahah this might be fun trait for TB fightes but probably it will be used rather to chase than run :/

Sorry but rest of this gather-based perks/traits are not so good idea :/ some of them are imposible to make, some just will force players to make more alts

[Kirkor]

Yay, let's make crafting completely useless and time wasting!

[Maxim Moskvin]

I don't think crafting needs to give no exp what so ever, as it's a good way to help you level up for the first few levels so you can actually fight creatures and raiders when you need to.
Instead, maybe make it stop giving exp after a certain level so you can't just boost to max with it, but can still use it when you first start out.
OR, have it give exp dependent on your intelligence, so if you want to use it to boost, you can, but your tank build will take a hell of a kicking.

[Strike]

I see these problems with crafting:

1) Experience from crafting, you can simply get from level 1 to 100 or even more without effort or risk. This isn't right, experience should be nerfed for crafting.

2) Easy to get resources, and with resources I mean HQ resources that are needed to craft better equipment.

3) Item bonus like -1AP is too much. I've heard that it will be removed after wipe, but most likely there will be another problem bonus -> range bonus for weapons. And this is problem with weapons that already have high range, for example Sniper Rifle.

4) Some higher tier items too easy to craft, for example CA. Just few HQ alloys, Metal Parts and Fibers, not hard for anyone.

Instead, maybe make it stop giving exp after a certain level

Maybe just reduced experience after certain level? Like 25% for first, then later 50%?

[duh7]

and -100% after 24 lvl

[Maxim Moskvin]

I see these problems with crafting:

Instead, maybe make it stop giving exp after a certain level

Maybe just reduced experience after certain level? Like 25% for first, then later 50%?

Very good.

[Strike]

and -100% after 24 lvl

Nope

This isn't happening, but experience should be nerfed.

My suggestion: After level 30 -> 25% reduced experience. And later level 60 -> 50% reduced experience.

No 75% or 100% reduced experience, that would be too much.

[Enigmatic]

Yay, let's make crafting completely useless and time wasting!

It wouldn't make it useless at all.  It would make it so that to be crafting the best gear, it actually takes some effort.  Effort that pvp apes wouldn't want to spend on crafting, opening up an opportunity for solo players to actually contribute to the game (trading), and interact more.

I don't think crafting needs to give no exp what so ever, as it's a good way to help you level up for the first few levels so you can actually fight creatures and raiders when you need to.
Instead, maybe make it stop giving exp after a certain level so you can't just boost to max with it, but can still use it when you first start out.
OR, have it give exp dependent on your intelligence, so if you want to use it to boost, you can, but your tank build will take a hell of a kicking.

Which is completely the opposite of what I was trying to say.  I think crafting should be a legitimate way to play the game, if a player wants to.  With definite pros and cons, and unique rewards for doing it that way, much like PVP and even PVE have their own unique rewards.

and -100% after 24 lvl

Nope

This isn't happening, but experience should be nerfed.

My suggestion: After level 30 -> 25% reduced experience. And later level 60 -> 50% reduced experience.

No 75% or 100% reduced experience, that would be too much.

At those levels, Exp doesn't really matter so much... Your 1-24 build is much more important than anything you do after that, in terms of that characters strengths and weaknesses.  Sure, you might have 300% everything, but that only increases your chance to hit, nothing else.

[Enigmatic]

1. Sugested many times

2. I agree. Remove blueprints from shops even at begining of the sesion. Blueprints should be only in ruin lockers and dungeons.

But first you need to know that after wipe Combat Armor crafting will probalby greatly change (there are rumors that this will reuire new (old) materials: kevlar and maybe HQ fibers to craft it. Not confirmed)

3. Its not needed. After wipe you cant craft weapons with -1AP bonus (that the second thing you need to know about wipe) and combat armors will be harder to craft as i said

4. Sugested many times. We have level cap so this will be rather step backward. XP gain off some items (those used for hardcore exping now) will be probably decreased

5. Its allready announced:

Crafting & Gathering
- New item bonuses,
- Changed some bonus of crafted items,
- Some recipes changed to make top stuff more expensive to craft and requiring new resources,
- Gathering resources will be removed from private locations (except Private Mines) and moved to towns and other public locations with increased accessibility,
- Limited capability of slave mining, but manual gathering more effective than it is now,
- Rare items possibly craftable from rare materials and blueprints.

I like idea for these perks:

Iron Fist: Can cut wood and mine without tools (melee 100<, strength 8<, level 12)
In a Pinch: Can use repair tool as a melee weapon (20-30 dmg, AP 4) (melee 100, repair 150, level 12)

Iron Fist perk have potential. It can be final perk (24lv) for hth characters which gives bonuses damage, critical chance or something to happy hth players and option of cuting wood and mine ore without tools might be small addition to this

"In a pinch" is almost reasonoble but damage may be too high

Lover, not a fighter:  6 bonus movement APs, +AP to shoot (science 75, repair 75, level 6)

hahah this might be fun trait for TB fightes but probably it will be used rather to chase than run :/

Sorry but rest of this gather-based perks/traits are not so good idea :/ some of them are imposible to make, some just will force players to make more alts

I understand that many of these things would have been suggested before, and that some are even on their way.  I just put them all together to try and work out a way to make crafting a balanced way to play the game, rather than simply a side-note for every single player.

This game really only has two ways to play and excel in. PvP or PvE.  Both revolve around combat, which not everyone is all that interested in, considering everything else this game has to offer. 

Not to reminisce too much, but you could play the original fallout games pretty much however you wanted.  If you wanted, you could complete pretty much the entire games without even shooting a gun, and that's what made them awesome.  You could play the game pretty much however you wanted, and still make progress and win.

I think if this game wants to attract more players, it needs to offer more ways to play and succeed.

[Kaaon]

Did you even readed this topic before posting this suggestion ?
http://forum.fonline-reloaded.net/index.php?topic=5228.0
most of what you suggested is already announced and planned

1.  Make crafting harder

4) Some higher tier items too easy to craft, for example CA. Just few HQ alloys, Metal Parts and Fibers, not hard for anyone.

already planned

- Some recipes changed to make top stuff more expensive to craft and requiring new resources,

btw even now when crafting is supereasy is still almost everyone in pvp using CAmk2 instead of good crafted CAs

2. Only low teir blueprints for NPC sale, mid-upper range blueprints from quests, highest tier blueprints from very tough multiplayer quests/dungeons

easy to get blueprints are intended
read at front page 5th feature http://fonline-reloaded.net/
... "easier access to blueprints and crafting facilities"
also..

- Rare items possibly craftable from rare materials and blueprints.

2) Easy to get resources, and with resources I mean HQ resources that are needed to craft better equipment.

Slave mining will be limited via overweight.

slave mining limited = resources harder to get

3. Make crafting bonuses rarer
With rarer blueprints, and harder crafting, after the blueprint is used, and resources mass collected, it will still mean a flood of strong weapons into the game.  Instead, drop the chances of getting a bonus, and make it so that it is actually rare to get an exceptional weapon.  This will boost the value of out of the ordinary weapons by quite a bit, and make them that much more exciting to make and use.  I'd suggest 1/4 of the current chance, for all bonuses.

3) Item bonus like -1AP is too much. I've heard that it will be removed after wipe, but most likely there will be another problem bonus -> range bonus for weapons. And this is problem with weapons that already have high range, for example Sniper Rifle.

Slave mining will be limited via overweight.

same, when private mines will be limited by slave OW then players will not have enough resources to craft that much items with good/exact bonuses so they will use regular stuff too

4. Reduce EXP gain from crafting.

1) Experience from crafting, you can simply get from level 1 to 100 or even more without effort or risk. This isn't right, experience should be nerfed for crafting.

Slave mining will be limited via overweight.

slave mining limited = resources harder to get = less resources = less XP
there will be not that much resources to get that much experience as now, experience are fine, problem is with slaves/private mines

5. Let some of the most powerful equipment be crafted

already planned

- Rare items possibly craftable from rare materials and blueprints.

and btw some good crafted weapons are already much better then some rare, sadly armors arent

6. Traits specifically for crafters

7. New Support Skills

8. Crafting Perks

strongly against it, it would just force players to make special alts for gathering, science and other things with those exact skills and special points

Geologist: Doubles resources gathered when mining (science 150<, Strength 6<, level 10) <- science is capped at 125, too overpowered, gathering without it would be pointless
Lumberjack: Doubles resources gathered when chopping (repair 150<, Endurance 6<, level 10) <- same

and -100% after 24 lvl

im strongly against it, crafting should be rewarded with some experience but it shouldnt be way for leveling

[duh7]

So if game have bot problems why no one chenge exp limit on craft? It is not that hard i gues.
More experience can be added when we are in dungeons or do missions.
Exp cap is a bad thing i know but experience from crafting shuld not give bonus to players that use bots or autoklickers.
Experience from crafting after 30 lvl shuld no be given.
To much monkeys are in game that use 5 alts with shit bot, autoklickers and mines.